Abstract:

In the late 1940's John von Neumann began to work on what he
intended as a comprehensive ``theory of [complex] automata''.
He started to develop a book length manuscript on the subject
in 1952. However, he put this aside in 1953, apparently due to
pressure of other work. Due to his tragically early death in
1957, he was never to return to it. The draft manuscript was
eventually edited, and combined for publication with some
related lecture transcripts, by Burks (1966). It is
clear from the time and effort which von Neumann invested in it
that he considered this to be a very significant and
substantial piece of work. However: subsequent commentators
(beginning even with Burks) have found it surprisingly
difficult to articulate this substance. Indeed, it has since
been suggested that von Neumann's results in this area are
either trivial, or, at the very least, could have been achieved
by much simpler means. It is an enigma. In this paper I
review the history of this debate (briefly) and then present my
own attempt at resolving the issue by focusing on an analysis
of von Neumann's problem situation
(Popper, 1976). I claim that this reveals the true
depth of von Neumann's achievement and influence on the
subsequent deveopment of this field; and, further, that it
generates a whole family of new consequent problems which can
still serve to inform--if not actually define--the field of
Artificial Life for many years to come.